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Market indexes were a bit rangebound today, finishing in the green but at lower levels than at which they started the trading session. The Dow closed up +47 points, +0.10%, while the S&P 500 was up +24 points, +0.38%. The Nasdaq finished the day +131 points, +0.59%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 dipped just into the red as of the closing bell: -0.86 points, -0.04% — call it breakeven.

A Tale of Two Tech Giants: NVDA and PANW
 

Reporting earnings after today’s close are two of the biggest tech firms in their selective niches, NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report). In NVIDIA’s case, their “niche” is basically everything AI infrastructure touches — which goes a long way toward explaining how it has wound up with a market cap of $4.5 trillion — while for Palo Alto it is a cybersecurity play.

Both companies beat estimates on their bottom lines: NVIDIA reported Q3 earnings of $1.30 per share versus $1.24 expected; Palo Alto made it to 94 cents per share in its fiscal Q1 versus projections for 89 cents. Top-lines were $57.0 billion for NVIDIA — a new all-time record high — and $2.50 billion for PANW. Guidance for next quarter and the full fiscal year were also raised for both companies.

Pretty much, that’s where the similarities end. Because while Palo Alto Networks grew revenues by +16% year over year for the quarter, NVIDIA — remember, the largest company by market cap the world has ever seen — grew revenues +62% from last year’s Q3. Non-GAAP gross margins for the semiconductor giant reached an astounding +73.6%, with an outperformance in its Blackwell chips that not all analysts expected.

Thus, NVIDIA shares are up +4.5% at this hour in the late session. Palo Alto’s are -3.0% currently. This is not to say PANW disappointed in any way in this quarterly report, but at 54x earnings, it didn’t exactly blow the doors off expectations. But that’s what NVIDIA did, with record $51.2 billion in its Data Center segment, which amounted to +25% growth quarter over quarter, and +66% year over year. Gaming was down -1% to $4.3 billion quarter over quarter, but that’s still +30% from a year ago.

Both companies represent the best the 21st century has to offer so far. Both are, naturally, based in Silicon Valley but represent a global segment of technology growth. But when it comes down to it, for now and into the foreseeable future, there is still only one NVIDIA.

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